Today, I looked for something simple (since I have a limited number of ingredients), finding this recipe. I thought, since it was simple, it would be okay for me to modify slightly. This is what I ended up putting in my bread machine:
1 1/8 cup WaterI noticed, when my machine was kneading, the mixture looked much stickier than the last recipe I used. The last recipe, however, looked fairly dry and lumpy when kneading. This one was much smoother. Not sticking to the sides of the pan or anything- just sticking to itself better. I don't know if this is good or bad- it's just a variation in the recipes.
3 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 tablespoon Sugar
1 (hefty) tablespoon Honey
1 1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Dry yeast
Last time, a little bit of dough got pushed up onto the edge of the pan during the kneading process. Just a tablespoon or so. It happened again this time, so I opened the machine and put the little bit of dough back in the mixture. Didn't seem like a big deal. I came back about an hour later and saw that the time was still the same- apparently I didn't close the door to the machine all the way. I started it back up again- it was in its rising stage at that point, so I figured that the dough just had more time to rise.
I don't know if it was the extra stickiness, the extra rising time or the fact that this was the first time I have reassembled the machine after washing it, but when I pulled the loaf out after letting it cool, the little spinners at the bottom of the machine (two black removable paddles that do the kneading) weren't attached to their pegs anymore. They had come up into the dough. One was just about a quarter of an inch into the dough (but was still cooked into the loaf, nonetheless.) The other was nowhere to be found. I poked at the loaf a little and found it in the middle of the loaf- it had obviously traveled since it detached, which causes me to think that this happened during the kneading process (as opposed to the extra rising.) I don't know if it's because of the extra stickiness, which I assume would be because of the largish glob of honey that I added to the recipe, or if it would have happened regardless...
I do believe that this affected my bread. The bread is pretty dense- no air bubbles. It has a decent flavor- still not quite like the pros. It's crunchy on the outside, but not near as much as my last one- it's a pleasant crunch. I'm letting it cool on a cutting board right now- it's cut in half (because I had to take out the second paddle.) I will go back to it before the night is over and put it in a bread bag. We'll see if it changes texture any overnight (like my other one did.)
(My camera battery is dead, which is why you don't have pictures. If I can find the charger in the near future, I will post pictures.)
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